Goblin Squad Member
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...a character who's meant to be regarded, in-character, as the most revolting, obnoxious war criminal ever to curse these deathless lands...
I'm looking forward to the fun if, despite your best efforts, your character ends up a shining paragon, on top of the rep-ladder. It'd be completely in-character with your board-persona :-).
It's the only way to be sure.
Oh, come on. You *know* nuking the site from orbit's the only way to be sure.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you only have to do those surprise attacks once in awhile, then the rep hit should be minor as it will gravitate back to positive if you behave yourself. If it's a constant thing then it would hurt your reputation significantly which might mean they need to revisit the mechanics involved to determine if it's desired behavior or not.
"Ha! I'm here to rob y...wat."
*Nihimon's and Bluddwolf's characters are wrestling and pulling each other's hair*
"...ugh. Guys, come on, break it up..."
*Rep = Max*
"Dammit, guys."
If you only have to do those surprise attacks once in awhile, then the rep hit should be minor as it will gravitate back to positive if you behave yourself. If it's a constant thing then it would hurt your reputation significantly which might mean they need to revisit the mechanics involved to determine if it's desired behavior or not.
Does Reputation gravitate? Thought that was just Alignment.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Your attitude is poisonous to the entire concept of crowdforging. Try to help us find a middle ground.
What do you think is ALREADY the reputation system ? It is, a middleground.
Crowdforging isn't meant to find a middleground between HardCore PvP and middlegrounded PvP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You guys seem to be forgetting a major factor in the argument of good vs. evil. Historically speaking, evil has much better players per capita. Having 60 evil players against 515 good players is usually an easy fight for evil.Personally, I think that's an aberration due to poor game design. If the surest route to success involves "killing early and often", the game has kind of stacked the deck to make Evil more successful.
That's actually a sentiment I can get behind. I don't believe indiscriminate killing should net you points or some arbitrary award, I think it should be an extension of adjusting your alignment to C and E and gaining infamy. The real reward is being VIEWED as a chaotic evil killer, earning respect/fear from those within your alignment, and earning enmity and possibly a price on your head from those opposed to you. If there is no mechanical reward, but there is a social consequence that generates meaningful conflict and play to the benefit of all parties experience, then the original actions were meaningful as a trigger.
Where it borders on griefing (and this is a significantly QUANTIFIABLE difference, using game logs and player testimony) is when you continually target the same person by hunting them down, and/or PMing them with hate speech, or any similarly abusive thing that can be viewed as harassment. That's banhammer worthy.
I don't think griefing and the like is something to be taken lightly. Harassment is a big problem online, especially in gaming communities. It's not something you can wipe away with a game mechanic, it's something you actively have to find an REMOVE from your game to make it a safe place for the players.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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"Makes" you sleep? Are we dealing with nocturnal pseudodragonns or something?
God, I want dragons in PFO. Especially tiny adorable ones.
I have a bad grammar, the last time I spoke English on a regular basis was in 2011. But I am always open to corrections, I wouldn't end up confusing "your" and "you're".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Your attitude is poisonous to the entire concept of crowdforging. Try to help us find a middle ground.What do you think is ALREADY the reputation system ? It is, a middleground.
Crowdforging isn't meant to find a middleground between HardCore PvP and middlegrounded PvP.
I said nothing about hardcore. I'm a casual player. I'm advocating for PvP that is meaningful to the role I want to play in this game. I don't want to log on regularly and find I can't do anything because I started too many brawls last time I was on. Gabriel Mobius above put it best:
Consensual PvP is not the same as meaningful PvP, it's just a subset of it.
I have a bad grammar, the last time I spoke English on a regular basis was in 2011. But I am always open to corrections, I wouldn't end up confusing "your" and "you're"."Makes" you sleep? Are we dealing with nocturnal pseudodragonns or something?
God, I want dragons in PFO. Especially tiny adorable ones.
Hey, I misspelled pseudodragon, I'm not one to talk. Just noticed a dumb joke I could make. The grammar was basically right, it's just that the implication of "makes" is "forces". "Helps you sleep at night" is more common. You're english is actually pretty good.
;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I said nothing about hardcore. I'm a casual player. I'm advocating for PvP that is meaningful to the role I want to play in this game. I don't want to log on regularly and find I can't do anything because I started too many brawls last time I was on.
There will be plenty of things you can do. Random PvP against unsanctioned targets probably won't be one of them though.
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I, too, don't want "Eve Fantasy Mode". EVE is, by all accounts, painfully dull when you're out of combat. Plus, don't two megaorganizations basically own everything? Sounds like an acquired taste to me. I'd prefer PFO be more accessible.
However, crippling bandits is working against that goal. Bandits can be newbies, too. Caution is advised.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I, too, don't want "Eve Fantasy Mode". EVE is, by all accounts, painfully dull when you're out of combat. Plus, don't two megaorganizations basically own everything? Sounds like an acquired taste to me. I'd prefer PFO be more accessible.
However, crippling bandits is working against that goal. Bandits can be newbies, too. Caution is advised.
I don't see any point in crippling bandits, and this is not the case here.
They will issue SAD... If you accept, the bandits shouldn't loose reputation. If you don't accept, they have a choice : they can either back off... Or punish you, and loosing some reputation.
They won't become rep -7000 by killing the occasional guy refusing the SAD. They will become rep -7000 if they suck at being bandits, and always ask to much to the point that people will prefer to take their chance and fight.
All that will just end up on a risk/reward judgement. Yeah, if DarkBanditzor received his 42th negative response when asking his victims 100% of their cargison, maybe will he think "Hey, maybe should I try 70%, and stop loosing rep ?".
I find the lack of evil guilds in the land rush disturbing. If there are any evil guilds out there I urge you to sign up or send me or any of the other Golgothans a message to open diplomatic ties. With so much good flying around we need to band together against their oppression.
Wait wait wait...did you just admit that you are a poop demon?
http://monster.wikia.com/wiki/Golgothan
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Goblin Squad Member
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I find the lack of evil guilds in the land rush disturbing. If there are any evil guilds out there I urge you to sign up or send me or any of the other Golgothans a message to open diplomatic ties. With so much good flying around we need to band together against their oppression.Wait wait wait...did you just admit that you are a poop demon?
http://monster.wikia.com/wiki/Golgothan
LOL
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Goblin Squad Member
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There will be plenty of things you can do. Random PvP against unsanctioned targets probably won't be one of them though.
As far as I can tell, it still WILL be one of them that is part of what contributed to being a CE character.
What I don't understand is why it's necessary to remove access to buildings/services in a CE town for people who act in a CE manner via the reputation system.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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sBecause GW wants killing of unsanctioned target on a regular daily basis to be punished.
If what you want is always roaming around to kill people, then it's the wrong game.
If you want to do that sometimes, you won't have any problem.
If you want to be a bandit asking people for money in exchange of their life, you won't have any problem if you're good at it and not stupid, which is one of the mandatory conditions to be in UNC, from what I understand.
It's not an ON/OFF switch... It's a graduate response. Yeah, if you go around killing people like in EvE, you'll suck... As you should.
But since you are if I'm not mistaken from UNC, I don't see why you are worrying, since UNC policy isn't a psychopathic rampage policy. Even in all the Exalted Bastards advertising, it seems to me that Bludd is specifically asking for chaotic evil players capable to not be chaotic stupid.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Access isn't being removed for acting in a CE manner. Access is removed for characters that don't meet the reputation threshold set by the town's citizens. If some group of CE wants to be high rep, they can keep that threshold high. If characters act in a CE manner *and* maintain a high enough rep, they can enter.
For the record, I think rep thresholds above +1000 (starting character rep) will be very, very rare. They might be pointless.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Access isn't being removed for acting in a CE manner. Access is removed for characters that don't meet the reputation threshold set by the town's citizens. If some group of CE wants to be high rep, they can keep that threshold high. If characters act in a CE manner *and* maintain a high enough rep, they can enter.
For the record, I think rep thresholds above +1000 (starting character rep) will be very, very rare. They might be pointless.
Access is removed for a settlement to even CONTAIN the buildings/services if the rep threshold is not high enough. This is essentially equivalent. What I'm saying is if we already have CE, and actions that are essentially CE are what cause you to lose rep, then why not drop rep and just use the CE alignment itself.
But since you are if I'm not mistaken from UNC
You are mistaken.
Because GW wants killing of unsanctioned target on a regular daily basis to be punished.
*sigh* Thats what I'm disagreeing with. If they want them to be punished, offer other players an incentive to punish them on their own. Put a mechanic in, you're essentially challenging people to find a way around the mechanic so that it happens anyway AND there's the reward of knowing you've beaten the system. It's perpetuate a cycle of increased killings rather than occasional killings.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating REWARDING meaningless combat. I'm advocating NOT PUNISHING it because PUNISHMENT DOESN'T WORK. If you get NO MATERIAL REWARDS from meaningless killing, it's a boring thing eventually. If other players take it upon themselves to enact justice, then you're no longer indiscriminately killing but engaging in meaningful PvP. If you get punished, it's a CHALLENGE to beat the system. You'll literally have players seeing how negative they can go or how many kills they can get by finding ways to circumvent the system before it catches on.
I know it sounds counterintuitive, but a punishment based system is a net NEGATIVE for the actual gameplay.
Another Alternative
If you absolutely want to prevent meaningless killings, here's a different way to approach it: Outright turn off non-consensual PvP but not the material consequences of declining.
- Guarding a caravan or traveling on a road and you decline to fight? then they may be robbed but not harmed.
- Guarding a Settlement, PoI or Outpost and refuse to consent to PvP combat? Your PoI/Outpost/Settlement may be destroyed, stolen from, and taken over but no harm may come to you.
It's the mechanical equivalent of "Your gold or your life" to banditry, but eliminates the problem of someone killing without consent.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There will be plenty of things you can do. Random PvP against unsanctioned targets probably won't be one of them though.As far as I can tell, it still WILL be one of them that is part of what contributed to being a CE character.
What I don't understand is why it's necessary to remove access to buildings/services in a CE town for people who act in a CE manner via the reputation system.
Because you become CE by engaging in a type of behavior that GW is trying to actively discourage in this game.
Not being able to make a very good character is one of the discouragements.
People keep getting hung up on not being able to arbitrarily kill EVERYONE they meet with no penalties.
If you want a murder simulator, this isn't your game.
If you want to be Bin Laden and NOT have to spend your life hiding in a stone hut while most of the free world hunts you down and mounts your head on a wall, this isn't your game.
If you want to go all Sandy Hook Elementary and not end up despised, reviled and unwelcome everywhere except in a body bag, this isn't your game.
If you want to be Bernie Madoff, see above.
You CAN be all of the above if that's how you want to play. Just don't expect it to be without real, hard consequences.
I'm not talking about a mass-murder simulator. I'm talking about legitimate avenues of non-consensual PvP. You seem to be confusing the two, or at least trying to build a very large and obvious strawman argument by referencing real world tragedies. It's an awesome appeal to emotion in other situations, but this is about the beta version of a video game based on a fantasy tabletop and that kinda pulls it into the territory of rather disrespectful. There's gotta be a version or corollary of Godwin's Law that applies here.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I'm advocating NOT PUNISHING it because PUNISHMENT DOESN'T WORK. If you get NO MATERIAL REWARDS from meaningless killing, it's a boring thing eventually. If other players take it upon themselves to enact justice, then you're no longer indiscriminately killing but engaging in meaningful PvP.
If you played EvE, you should be aware that what you're saying is in absolute contradiction with reality.
People DO kill for the lulz. That's a fact. I don't see any point to give you proof, because you must be the only person in the world to believe they don't.
And about justice *sigh*... You do understand that the point is not to reward you for killing people by giving you what you want : More PvP ?
The majority of Players do NOT want what you want. The majority of players do not want a PvP game. They want a game with PvP, that's different. Ask Andius. I will again point one of his article : http://www.covenantofthephoenix.com/forums/blog/19/entry-48-desegregation-b reaking-through-the-pvp-game-myth/ <= Obviously, Andius ain't a carebear anti-pvp whining noob. And yet... Seriously, read this text. Since I read it, I have a great deal of respect for him.
Obviously, you understand the goal of GW. You understand what they DON'T want. You are not searching for any kind of middleground here. You want to change the point of the game.
Well, like certain people here like to say : Maybe it's not a game for you, that's all.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Another Alternative
If you absolutely want to prevent meaningless killings, here's a different way to approach it: Outright turn off non-consensual PvP but not the material consequences of declining.- Guarding a caravan or traveling on a road and you decline to fight? then they may be robbed but not harmed.
- Guarding a Settlement, PoI or Outpost and refuse to consent to PvP combat? Your PoI/Outpost/Settlement may be destroyed, stolen from, and taken over but no harm may come to you.It's the mechanical equivalent of "Your gold or your life" to banditry, but eliminates the problem of someone killing without consent.
Er... I don't even know what to respond to that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm talking about legitimate avenues of non-consensual PvP.
So far those are faction (probably a biggie), feud (definitely a biggie), war, assassination contracts, bounty contracts and possibly "Blinds" and S&D (absolutely huge). Now add in the occasional extra "non consensual" hit outside of those.
Each of those is a meaningful way to initiate non consensual PVP.
I have played UO and DFUW. I still would if my friends were willing. None of those things were in those games. Nothing you have described as a "better way" would interest those friends, or the larger MMO customer base. Except maybe the increased chance of perma death, which is a pipe dream because it would drive away many of those interested in PVP.
None of the arguments that you have presented have convinced me that the avenues above are useless in controlling griefing. The goal never was to perfectly control ALL griefing, only more than is controlled in other games.
This is the game that is being designed here. I doubt, very much, that this part is up for crowdforging. Just as protection (with a switch) from non consensual PVP is not up for crowdforging.
I will say that you are persistant though. ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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BurnHavoc, I feel for you man, but I just don't think GW is going to give up on the rep mechanic. It's a central part of their plan to reduce Random Player Killing.
We're not sure how much RPKing will be tolerated yet. The point at which a player is deemed a low-rep murder hobo may be 1 unsanctioned kill per hour/day/week.
That said, I don't think it will be hard to find somebody that you can kill without rep penalties. There are: Criminals, Bounties, Feuds, Wars, Factional hostilities, Voluntary PvP flags, and SADs (I thought if they refuse there is no rep loss to killing?) for instance.
I think the sort of PvP GW is trying to encourage is settlement vs settlement rather than player vs randomplayer.
EDIT: Ninja'd =(
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Goblin Squad Member
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;) I'm still going to like it either way. In all the years I haven't played a MMO that I totally disliked. I've been frustrated at certain things, I've been pissed off at this update or that, but never totally disliked one. I was just hoping for something different for once, something closer to some of the MUDs I love and I'm kinda frustrated that instead of TRYING something new they're playing it safe by sticking to the mold and that's what has been killing MMOs before they even have a chance.
I've played free MUDs with thousands of players and open PvP with alignment-based systems function perfectly fine without penalizing anything and without needing the idea of "asking for consent to PvP". This is not impossible, it's just that no major development company is willing to TRUST their players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Every open PvP MMO I'm aware of has RPKing without many/any limits. In my mind, PFO is different from ALL of the rest in that it is making a reduction of RPKing a core principle of the game (rather than attempting it and mostly failing, as some have done).
Note that I like RPKing; I've just resigned myself to accepting that it is being limited in PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Players-at-large have proven pretty untrustworthy in the days since MUDs were the standard.
The goal is to build a culture where pvp doesn't happen just because it CAN, but because there's a reason for it that usually everyone involved agrees is a good one- whether or not they like the outcome. And I mean culture in the most original sense: a set of learned knowledge passed from one generation to another. Where older players correct newer players when they bring the outdated behaviors into Pathfinder Online that are actually taboo (reading forums isn't even a part of it) so you can get a good Settlement membership and trade partners work with you because "that's how it's done here".
Right now in games where pvp can happen in the open world the common culture is that pvp should be engaged early and often whenever it's possible, no other considerations. GW wants the shift to the new culture to happen as quickly as possible so they're building in some mechanical aspects on top of players ourselves promoting our preferred behavior.
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I, too, don't want "Eve Fantasy Mode". EVE is, by all accounts, painfully dull when you're out of combat. Plus, don't two megaorganizations basically own everything? Sounds like an acquired taste to me. I'd prefer PFO be more accessible.
However, crippling bandits is working against that goal. Bandits can be newbies, too. Caution is advised.
I don't see any point in crippling bandits, and this is not the case here.
They will issue SAD... If you accept, the bandits shouldn't loose reputation. If you don't accept, they have a choice : they can either back off... Or punish you, and loosing some reputation.
They won't become rep -7000 by killing the occasional guy refusing the SAD. They will become rep -7000 if they suck at being bandits, and always ask to much to the point that people will prefer to take their chance and fight.
All that will just end up on a risk/reward judgement. Yeah, if DarkBanditzor received his 42th negative response when asking his victims 100% of their cargison, maybe will he think "Hey, maybe should I try 70%, and stop loosing rep ?".
What if the merchant has guards? Either the bandit has to give up rep, or the element of surprise that could be crucial.
Incidentally, something I've been thinking about: Good people can have bad reps, too.
Remember that "Crusader" tag that I think they ditched? Killing evil people can keep your alignment sparkly, but earn you an ugly reputation. I kind of like that—that reputation cuts both ways. Even a guy who's doing the right thing can be heavily mistrusted, like Malcolm Reynolds.
"You're unpredictable, Mal. You run when you oughta fight. Fight when you oughta deal. Makes a businessperson a mite twitchy."
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Goblin Squad Member
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What if the merchant has guards? Either the bandit has to give up rep, or the element of surprise that could be crucial.
Last word was about faction goodness for merchants, guards AND bandits. No need to give up surprise if they have guards and are in the opposing "faction". Just jump em!
Edit: Hey! What if I mix a couple of non faction guards in that troop?
Edit2: What? Oh, a caravan either IS a faction caravan or it isn't?
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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;) I'm still going to like it either way. In all the years I haven't played a MMO that I totally disliked. I've been frustrated at certain things, I've been pissed off at this update or that, but never totally disliked one. I was just hoping for something different for once, something closer to some of the MUDs I love and I'm kinda frustrated that instead of TRYING something new they're playing it safe by sticking to the mold and that's what has been killing MMOs before they even have a chance.
I've played free MUDs with thousands of players and open PvP with alignment-based systems function perfectly fine without penalizing anything and without needing the idea of "asking for consent to PvP". This is not impossible, it's just that no major development company is willing to TRUST their players.
Er, EvE online, again. Or Darkfall...
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Goblin Squad Member
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First, there better not be two things that look like you Fanti.
Second, EVE combat can get boring because outside of the giant political bloc power struggle fleet battles, there's usually no point to it after it's over. You're bored so you take off into low sec to see what happens; variation- take off into FW low sec to see what happens and try to make some money.
I don't want Pathfinder Online to be like EVE in that respect. Fight less often (than every time you're bored in the afternoon), but know exactly WHY you're fighting and the stakes behind winning or losing. Then even the run-up to the fight is engaging because, after all, 95% of Westerns happened before the shootout.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ok, maybe I'm approaching this wrong with everyone involved. Let's take this down a more constructive path.
Leave reputation as it is, my warning stands that it will be abused by malicious players and I see it being completely removed or reworked in it's entirety not long after open or release.
Anyone interested in forking this conversation, please see this thread:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r4rj?Crowdforging-The-problem-of-nonconsensual -but#1
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Goblin Squad Member
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We're not sure how much RPKing will be tolerated yet.
We do, however, have some indications:
Most people need guidelines and clear references to understand how their actions influence the results they obtain. Especially when you are talking about something as abstract as an MMO.
My thesis is that a bright, simple, clear guideline is needed to help people make good choices ("good" defined as "generating results that are generally in-line with my expectations and desires")
A second thesis is that a lot of people will come to Pathfinder Online with two incorrect preconceptions about the way the game is played. Those two preconceptions are:
1: Open World PvP implies a murder simulator
2: Killing early, often, and without discrimination is the route to long-term success
These two preconceptions mutually reinforce each other. If #2 is true, #1 is inevitable. This is the trap that game after game after game fell into. (Sometimes they didn't "fall" into it as much as they embraced it as a design paradigm on purpose.)
We are going to break this pattern and we are going to redefine those preconceptions. In order to do that we must repeatedly and powerfully shock the system. One of those shocks is a negative feedback loop that links random killing to gimping character development.
Another, related problem is community toxicity. Observation tells us that toxicity proceeds from a sense of external fairness and justice not applying inside the game world simulation. 90% of people want to be treated fairly and justly. But the anonymous internet lets a small group of sociopaths act unfairly and unjustly - and those actions, if not harshly countered, leads a larger (but still small) group of people to act out power fantasies and work out issues they can't resolve in real life with aggression. The result is that the majority feels they are subjected to unfair and unjust experiences. And they leave.
We are going to actively attack community toxicity from the grass roots up. As I've said before there is no silver bullet to this problem. The approach we're going to use is a multi-layered approach. One of those layers is giving people an extremely clear message about their in-game behavior. If they act badly as defined by the desires of 90% of the community their bad actions will hurt their in-game power level. I feel reasonably confident I can proxy my opinion for what 90% of the people I intend to sell this game to want. We have lots of time to make minor adjustments and consider corner cases.
So the reason we're making a funnel of suck is to make it possible for our players to clearly see it, clearly understand its consequences, clearly understand how their in-game actions relate to that funnel, and clearly see that they can be and will be affected by it. And we accept up front that as a result there are some people who will be so frustrated by the straightjacket that they cannot be satisfied and happy within that system. And that's OK.
Emphasis in the original.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You guys seem to be forgetting a major factor in the argument of good vs. evil. Historically speaking, evil has much better players per capita. Having 60 evil players against 515 good players is usually an easy fight for evil.Personally, I think that's an aberration due to poor game design. If the surest route to success involves "killing early and often", the game has kind of stacked the deck to make Evil more successful.
It's not an aberration at all. As a general rule, evil players tend to go evil because they're looking for the challenge of being outnumbered. Generally speaking, good people are good because they need the strength that numbers or game mechanics provide to help protect them.
To the person that said indiscriminate PvP has killed games, you've obviously never played those games. The ONLY reason Ultima Online died is because they tried to compete with Everquest by requiring an item grind to be competitive.
I wasn't around for the end, but it seems that the only reason Shadowbane died is because the graphics were horrible and other options were released. Both it and UO today have so many people who still love them that there are hundreds of player run servers (which only suffer from lack of population due to too much competition).
The only reason Darkfall was still-born is because their reputation system was atrocious. It would have been an amazing game if it weren't for the simple fact that the reputation system allowed for more griefing than all the other MMOs put together.
EVE Online is STILL going strong. Sure, it has some problems, but it has a pretty sizable player base just because it's the only true PvP game left.
No, the thing that killed indiscriminate PvP MMORPGs typically had more to do with horribly implemented reputation systems than the PvP itself. Apparently that's exactly what Goblinworks is going for here. They haven't seemed to learn from history, and it looks like it might end up being a serious problem. My only wish is that they would have been a little more forthcoming with information about the game before I gave them all that money in the kickstarter. I'd have never given that much money to a game that claims to be a sandbox PvP game just to write all these mechanics to prove the opposite.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No, the thing that killed indiscriminate PvP MMORPGs typically had more to do with horribly implemented reputation systems than the PvP itself. Apparently that's exactly what Goblinworks is going for here. They haven't seemed to learn from history, and it looks like it might end up being a serious problem. My only wish is that they would have been a little more forthcoming with information about the game before I gave them all that money in the kickstarter. I'd have never given that much money to a game that claims to be a sandbox PvP game just to write all these mechanics to prove the opposite.
+1
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Demoyn, the point I'm trying to make is that there are players who are extremely competent and have real hang-ups about taking advantage of other people. Games that require you to adopt an attitude of "kill early and often" turn those players off, so they're not as represented on the "good" side of the equation as they would be absent that game design choice.
My only wish is that they would have been a little more forthcoming with information about the game before I gave them all that money in the kickstarter.
Let me just repeat something I said a few days ago:
I really wish that GW would make it clearer (to those not on the paizo boards) what's going on with the whole Guild business, I know they have their reasons, but it's so fuzzy at the moment.I remember this same sentiment being expressed a lot during the Kickstarter, but I would ask you to look at it from Goblinworks' perspective. There's no way to concisely convey all of the meaningful information about this game. They've got a lot of blogs that folks can read to get up-to-speed, and they have forums where folks can come to ask questions. It's just not possible to post a bullet-list of 5 sentences that would stop players from making bad assumptions. I feel a lot of frustration that many of the 116 Guilds in the Land Rush can't be reached, but that's not Goblinworks' fault.
How many of those folks do you think realize this is a PvP game? How many understand the impact of the Reputation System? How many truly understand that day one of Early Enrollment is going to be a Minimum Viable Product? How many believe they're going to get a Settlement just because they're in the Land Rush? How many believe that they're going to get a Settlement because they just became a Stakeholder in Week 1?
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Demoyn, the point I'm trying to make is that there are players who are extremely competent and have real hang-ups about taking advantage of other people. Games that require you to adopt an attitude of "kill early and often" turn those players off, so they're not as represented on the "good" side of the equation as they would be absent that game design choice.
I guess I just don't understand why you think anyone would need to "take advantage of other players". I've been playing PvP MMORPGs for 18 years now (even longer if you count MUDs), and not once have I played a game where taking advantage of players provided any significant boost to in-game abilities.
Community driven warfare/justice is the only system which can't be used to a mechanical advantage. When a vast majority of the community members hate you because you indiscriminately kill, you'd be surprised just how hard it is to keep a positive sum by killing for resources (because people hunt you down and take your stuff more often than not).
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Goblin Squad Member
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It feels to me as if "I'm so hated they're all hunting me" is the result of the hated one having dragged others down to his level. I believe PFO is one of the first games to attempt to bring him up to a higher level instead, or, if not possible, to convince him to play a different game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It feels to me as if "I'm so hated they're all hunting me" is the result of having dragged others down to a very-low level. I believe PFO is one of the first games to attempt to bring folks up to a higher level instead.
That's great and all, but when you pull everyone up you've just created an endless grind, not meaningful PvP. Meaningful PvP invokes emotions. Contrived reputation systems just end up with people sitting in their chairs looking for work-arounds.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...looking for work-arounds.
I'm sorry to say it so bluntly, but much of the community, I think, will be actively involved in Crowdforging ways to defeat any work-arounds you, I, or anyone else may locate. I'm a risk manager in real life, and I've long joked I'm paid and trained to think like a bad guy; I look forward to helping GW close as many loopholes as we can envision, whether before or after they're used.